The ten deadliest earthquakes in 100 years

À DAY

With a death toll exceeding 50,000, the earthquake and its multiple aftershocks that have mourned Turkey and Syria since February 6 are among the ten deadliest of the past 100 years.&nbsp ;

An earthquake measuring 7.8 according to the Chinese authorities (7.5 according to the USGS) devastates the industrial city of Tangshan, in 200 km east of Beijing.

The official death toll is 242,000, but Western expert estimates range as high as 700,000, making it the second deadliest in the world. history of humanity after that of Shaanxi (northern China) in 1556, with an estimated death toll of 830,000.

On December 26, 2004, a magnitude 9.1 earthquake off Sumatra (Indonesia) caused a gigantic tsunami that killed more than 230,000 people on the coasts of ten countries in Southeast Asia, including 170,000 in Indonesia.

The gigantic waves, starting at 700 km/h, reach up to thirty meters in height.

On January 12, 2010, an earthquake of magnitude 7 killed more than 200,000 people in Haiti and left 1.5 million people homeless. The tremor transforms the capital Port-au-Prince into a field of ruins.

In the aftermath, the country was affected from October 2010 by an epidemic of cholera, introduced by Nepalese peacekeepers who came after the earthquake. It will cause more than 10,000 deaths until January 2019.

On September 1, 1923, two minutes before noon, an earthquake of magnitude 7.9 shakes the Kanto plain. The earthquake left more than 142,000 dead or missing and 100,000 injured, most victims of the fires that ravaged Tokyo and Yokohama for two days.

On October 5, 1948, at least 110,000 people died in a 7.3 magnitude earthquake in Ashkhabad, the capital of Turkmenistan, then part of the USSR.

Saparmurat Niazov, fantastic dictator who will lead the country from its independence in 1990 to 2006, will establish a cult of the personality of his mother, who died in this earthquake.

On May 12, 2008, a magnitude 7.9 earthquake killed more than 87,000 people and injured 4.45 million, devastating large areas of Sichuan province (southwest China). Among the victims are thousands of students, killed in the collapse of precariously constructed schools.

On October 8, 2005, a magnitude 7.6 earthquake killed more than 73,000 people and 3 .5 million homeless, mainly in the area of ​​Kashmir under Pakistani control. The medical infrastructure was almost reduced to nothing.

On December 25, 1932, an earthquake of magnitude 7.9 killed 70,000 in Gansu, in northwestern China.

On May 31, 1970, a magnitude 7.9 earthquake near the northern coast of Peru killed some 67,000 people. The city of Yungay, 450 km north of Lima, was wiped off the map by a mudslide and ice and the mountainous locality of Huaraz was particularly affected.

On February 6, an earthquake of magnitude 7.8 hits southern Turkey and neighboring Syria, followed by a very strong aftershock of magnitude 7.5.

It kills more than 50,000 people (44,374 in Turkey) according to a report obtained by AFP from several sources at the end of February.